I’ve worn many hats over the years as a photographer, entrepreneur, educator and author. I’ve also been a staff writer at dpreview.com reviewing the latest photo gear. In addition to covering the personal technology beat here at Forbes.com, I’m on the faculty of the International Center of Photography in New York City and am currently working on a photography book documenting Brooklyn's infamous Gowanus Canal. You can follow me on Twitter @amadouworld and visit my Instagram feed @amadiallo to keep tabs on my photo projects. For story pitches and news tips reach me via gmail at adiallo.me

Apple Releases iTunes Radio, A Pandora Alternative

Apple's streaming radio service is a built-in feature of iTunes, available on iOS devices, Macs and PCs.

Today, as part of its iOS7 upgrade, AppleApple has released its long-awaited iTunes Radio service. Apple’s first in-house attempt at streaming radio – iTunes has long offered access to independent radio stations – provides a triple play of opportunity for the Cupertino juggernaut in advertising revenue, download sales and market share.

With this free ad-supported service, Apple is adding a new and potentially lucrative platform to its iAd advertising network. With Advertising Age reporting a minimum buy of $1 million, Apple has garnered blue chip companies like McDonald'sMcDonald's and Pepsi for audio and video ads that run once every 15 and 60 minutes respectively.

As part and parcel of the latest version of iTunes, using iTunes Radio means that if a newly discovered song strikes your fancy, you’re only a click away from purchasing it outright. This browse/buy integration is one that shouldn’t be overlooked. A recent survey of Americans’ listening habits commissioned by Clear Channel found that 80% of respondents find radio helpful in discovering new music. If Apple, the world’s largest music retailer, can position iTunes Radio as a viable music discovery alternative, the upside of this integration is huge.

It also may explain Apple’s decision to allow iTunes Match subscribers, who tend to be committed music consumers, to bypass ads altogether. This potential for increasing sales revenue is not lost on the record labels, who collect far less – only fractions of a penny – for a radio stream than an iTunes purchase.

With iTunes Radio, Apple is clearly taking aim at market-leader Pandora, whose personalized radio service boasts of more than 72 million active monthly users. While that’s a significant headstart for any newcomer to bridge – and many have failed – it should be noted that back in June Apple announced it has 575 million active iTunes accounts. So the music retail giant has the audience. What begins now is the difficult task of convincing them to use iTunes Radio in significant numbers.

Here is a quick look at what it’s like to use the shipping version of iTunes Radio on an iOS device (it’s also available on the latest desktop version iTunes as well). A brief feature overview, this is based on just a short time spent exploring the new release. If you’re interested in digging deeper, read my comparison of the algorithm-determined discovery selections of iTunes Radio alongside those of Pandora and Spotify. The results are interesting.

Featured stations

You can create custom stations based on a specific song, artist or genre.

A catalog of millions of songs is useless if you can’t find one you like, so Apple is heavily promoting featured stations showcasing songs and artists it thinks its users will enjoy hearing. Featured stations at launch covered artists from Drake to Miles Davis, with curated guest DJ stations from pop acts like Katy Perry as well as Apple curated offerings for, among other things, Mexicano music. Recent job postings like this one for genre specialists with music industry experience to curate these stations hint at Apple’s reliance on tastemakers as well as algorithms to help you discover new music.

Custom stations

Of course you can create stations of your own from scratch. And as with other streaming services, you can base it on an initial song, artist or genre. You can skip up to six songs per hour. The limit is station-dependent though, so skips on your Country station don’t impact options on your Jazz station for example.

Each station has a slider that moves between Hits, Variety and Discovery, presumably letting you bias the algorithms Apple is using to select upcoming songs. You can also share your stations via text, email, Twitter or Facebook as well as with users in close proximity via AirDrop.

History

With iTunes Radio’s history tab you can browse through every song that has been played on your account. While you can’t replay these as you can with on-demand services, you can listen to iTunes’ familiar 90 second preview, make a purchase or add the song to your Wish List.

Ratings

Similar to Pandora and Apple’s own Genius system, both of which offer a thumbs up/thumbs down option on recommendations, iTunes Radio lets you tweak the playlist with Play more like this and Never play this song options found under the Star icon on the play screen.

Wish List and purchases

One click takes you to the iTunes Store where you can purchase songs and albums.

The iTunes Wish List, a repository for songs and albums and apps you’ve highlighted receives greater prominence in iOS 7. Instead of being hidden under a pulldown menu as in previous versions, it now sits as a top level option on the History panel. A buy button sits next to each song and you can also make a purchase in the main play window while you’re listening to a song on a station.

Siri

In iOS 7, Siri, Apple’s voice recognition assistant is available in both a male or female voice, each with a more refined speaking manner than the previous version. And you can use it to good hands-free effect in iTunes. You can play, pause or skip songs, request specific radio stations or genres, and utter, “Play more like this” to personalize upcoming selections. And in what’s likely every radio listener’s fantasy, you can determine the artist on the current track simply by asking, “Who sings this song?”

Initial Thoughts

As you’d expect from Apple, iTunes Radio is a clean, elegant entry to the internet radio game. Unlike Pandora, Apple has negotiated licensing fees directly with record labels ($0.0013 per stream according to Billboard) and is also reportedly sharing a percentage of its advertising revenue.

Apple is on decidedly more friendly terms with the music industry than Pandora, which is embroiled in a licensing dispute with ASCAP and a lawsuit with BMI over royalty rates. In a bid to further its reputation as tastemaker, Apple intends to work with record labels to identify and promote up and coming artists on the verge of breakout success via iTunes Radio curated recommendations.

And by integrating streaming radio with the broader world of iTunes, Apple is offering an all-in-one bundle of services and features that distinguishes it from most competitors. The one thing missing of course, is an on-demand streaming feature a la Spotify. But it doesn’t take much imagination to see how Apple could incorporate such a service. Whether it will, or even needs to, remains an open question.

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Strange that I can’t find anything Apple has published about the streaming quality of iTunes Radio and how it compares to the 192 bits per second you get with a Pandora One subscription. If it’s as good or better, you would think Apple would promote that.

Apple has a history of withholding geek-oriented specs on consumer-oriented products. By their silence I think we can assume that it’s not higher than what Pandora’s max setting offers. And it certainly wouldn’t make sense for the rate to be greater than the 256 kbps of iTunes purchases.

There’s also the possibility that Apple is offering adaptive rates depending on whether a user is connected over WiFi or cellular.

I’m working on a story comparing aspects of iTunes Radio, Pandora and Spotify (stay tuned) and I’ll report on whether there’s an audible difference between them.

I’m not sure what it is either, but for whatever reason it sounds better when streaming it in my car using Bluetooth Audio. The bass is definitely deeper and as of now it’s easier to use than Pandora. I think that’s because it’s a newer service and doesn’t have the advertisers that Pandora has. I didn’t have a single popup during streaming for my 45 minute commute. Which makes navigating the screen (skipping songs) easier. I’m sure those will be added in, but it did seem the sound quality was better, skipping was faster and overall station selection played better songs. It has to be due to the fact that Apple has such a massive library of songs, I heard songs that I like from artists that I’ve never heard on Pandora or Spotify.

Us “geek oriented” consumers spend money too so information like that is important. I primarily listen to Pandora One via desktop streaming to my Denon and B & W surround sound system via Apple TV and third party software (Airfoil) so I can take advantage of the higher sound quality. I was hoping iTunes Radio can replace this setup with better functionality (easier remote control, etc.) I’ve also toyed with Spotify Premium (320 kbps) but I like discovering new music.

I am just hoping that iTunes Radio streams at the 256 kbps you get with iTunes purchases. If it’s more like the normal quality Pandora at 128 kbps, then I guess it is really another masked attempt by Apple to rope us into more iTunes purchases by offering “paid for” higher quality or it’s really only targeting all the folks who primarily listen with ear buds on their iPhones/iPods.

rjgcharlotte, I don’t know what the bit rate is, but I do know that so far songs sound far better than Pandora and very approximately comparable to Spotify Premium. That’s been my experience listening on stock Apple earbuds.

I had a run of Amy Winehouse, Pink, Fergie, Adele the other day (on a female-centric station I had created) that sounded just ridiculously good on iTunes Radio.

Amadou, For me the largest difference is that Apple put very little effort into the recommendation engine. Try it yourself, no matter how eclectic of an artist I start with when creating the station, the station plays mainstream pop! (my son made an Eminem station and it played Black Eyed Peas! Really???). I’m under the impression it does little more than check the genre that they categorize that artist (so country, hip-hop, jazz, pop, etc) and play songs from that genre. This is the reason so many streamers have failed to compete with Pandora’s genome and I think iTunes Radio is next. Pandora uses 450 attributes to categorize songs (basic rock structures, mild rhythmic syncopation, extensive vamping, subtle use of vocal harmony, etc). If a personalized radio station doesn’t play songs you want to hear, it’s done. Best of luck with the article! Doug

Doug, I’m literally in the middle of a discovery engine comparison between iTunes Radio, Pandora and Spotify (spreadsheets are covering my desk right now). So far it appears that your iTunes purchase history can play a noticeable role in song selection. Also note that there’s a Hits/Discovery slider that would seem to bias results as well. We should be able to publish the piece early this week. Stay tuned.

Just tried it on my iMac and it sounds great to me. I’ve never tried any streaming service before except for what iTunes had in the way of streaming stations and those were of pretty low quality. I’ve got no complaints at all, even with the ads. It’s hard to imagine Pandora’s future growth won’t be affected by all. Again, Wall Street befuddles me. Apple has some pretty strong advertisers and all those credit cards and yet Pandora is at an all-time high. I certainly would have thought otherwise. Pandora shareholders win, Apple shareholders lose. Tim Cook is really whiffing.

Apart from the relative bit-rate equivilence, PandoraOne ($40/yr) along with PandoraJam ($15) affords unlimited recording of streamed 192kb music to your Mac. iTunes Radio with Match ($25/yr) will cost you $1.29/song, though both scenarios aleviate adds. Yes iTunes Radio is a great new feature for iTunes users such as I however, for ‘ownership’ of ones media, PandoraOne and PandoraJam still appears to lead.

Hmmm, I don’t know..no android service? Unless it’s on its way, kind of seems like a major flaw in the system. After all, you gotta reach the masses if you want the masses to care (and, like, all of them, not just the apple crew). I’m sure there’s a great library! And I wouldn’t be opposed to trying it if they made it for my device. For now I’ll be sticking to Pandora and Torch music, and not feeling like I’m missing out on anything!